Falling Star
by TheBreakfastMenu
Summary: Andross is defeated, but spectres of war yet loom over the Lylat system. Greed for control of the Cornerian hegemony will test the fervor of a disheartened veteran, and a lost curse will see Fox and a mysterious castaway struggle to protect what little remains of a lush, but quiet planet.
1. Part 1

Falling Star

Part 1

A treacherous calm floated amid the eternal darkness separated only by the glisten of distant stars. Even the mighty hum of a division's worth of Cornerian engines could not permeate its vacuum as they hovered above the orange and barren giant, Titania. Still, their presence was an absolute, especially so of the flag ship at their tactical center which bore the words 'Tredegar' in bold print across its gun peppered flanks. Firmly affixed at high orbit, it took no offensive stance, yet each frigate and cruiser abreast it lay with guns loaded and ready to pounce. At the helm, a nervous heron stood scanning the starry horizon beyond the observation deck with a particular intensity, running the fingers of his right hand along the grooves of the Navy medal adorning the left side of his chest while those of the left pressed against his back in a fist. Those of lesser rank filed back and forth behind him, though even their urgency and steadfast attention could not ease him of his tension. It was only when a clean-cut husky emerged from the crowd, her straight-line march perfectly complimenting her tight fit uniform free of any dust or lint, and approached him that he was relieved of his static conscience.

"Captain Salk!" She spoke, planting her feet before him and giving the proper salutation in almost robotic fashion.

"At ease, Ensign Pond," Salk returned, moving his right hand down to mimic the left and turning his head just so that he could lay eyes on her. "any report from 2nd division?"

"Still only heat signatures they detected from Sector X," Pond replied, inching her finger down the data pad on which the report was archived as she read it. "and considering 2nd division's been in orbit around Fichina for over a week now, they don't think any Androssian ships will be headed in that direction."

"I see," Salk murmured, "they've been able to outrun us so far, but it looks like we finally have them trapped."

"You think they'll try to make the jump to MacBeth?" said Pond, swiping the data pad so that the report could be displayed on the panels in front of Salk.

"It'd be quite a task for Venomian blitz drives," Salk answered, moving his left hand over his mouth as he pondered, "Sacrificing load capacity for speed, it wouldn't be without risk of catastrophic overload."

"Still, they aren't in a position to play it safe, and Oikonny's no stranger to gutsy moves," he continued, his eyes moving about the panels as he analyzed the jump distances between nearby planets, "I assume Near Space Ranging is still coming up empty?"

"If it wasn't, you'd know about it by now," Pond sighed as she stepped forward to stand next to him, taking her usual moment to try and accustom herself to the near foot in height he had on her despite their equal age, "you know as well as I do comms doesn't wait for my hourly report."

"Makes sense, your reports were always more of an excuse for us to be able to chat every now and then."

"And lucky for you I am duty bound to oblige," Pond jabbed, giving him a smile which Salk met with a gentle crow in the kind of low baritone timbre only he could produce.

"You know," she began again, her tone softening, "you didn't have to commission me just to talk to you." Salk fell silent.

"Nav deck is only a lift ride away, and I'm sure the other NCO's would be pleased to know their captain isn't all work and no leisure."

"Try telling that to the admirals," Salk grumbled, his head grown slightly downcast.

"They may have granted me command of 4th division, and all that implies, but to them I'm just another soldier," he explained with a certain nihilism, "and military code requires dignified conduct at all times, especially at the cost of organic behavior."

"Almost makes you harken back to the academy days, huh?" Pond mused, a brief memory of them first meeting amidst their induction ceremony flashing through her head before Salk responded.

"That's an understatement," he said, a blank expression coupling his reminiscence, "'Be all you can be for the Republic' was the tune I sang to myself for those four years, and every year after that as I crawled up the ranks; following every command, sacrificing every ounce of my determination."

"When the war broke out I was excited, I'm ashamed to admit, itching to get my piece of the action, the glory," he continued, Pond listening with growing concern as he seemed to deflect any attempt of hers to look him in the eyes, "I remember the day they finally put the Captain pin on my collar, gave me my very own ship..."

"That was the day Andross took his last breath at the hands of Star Fox, leaving me to chase the heat signatures of his ghosts across the Lylat system." The end of his sentence seemed louder than any word he had uttered in that moment as he, again, fell silent. Seconds passed, though it seemed like an eternity as Pond tried to extend a hand out to embrace his cold shoulder.

"Captain Salk!" A voice rang out, interrupting her inches before making contact as an NCO from the navigation deck appeared on the holo-interface, "NSR is lighting up! Androssian ships will be entering the gravity well momentarily." Salks head bobbed upwards, his conscious buzz from earlier returning.

"Hm, today might not be a bad day after all," he said, a grin almost arising from his expression as he and Pond's eyes met once more.


	2. Part 2

Falling Star

Part 2

"All hands to battle stations, prepare for imminent engagement," Salk commanded, the waves of confidence coming off each word sending a chill up Pond's spine as she listened. The ensemble of sirens blaring that could only follow such an order, however predictable and well experienced, never ceased to fill the ships atmosphere with a kind of primal excitement that caught them completely off guard. Though not a single enemy ship lay in sight just yet, a rumble shuddered through the hull signaling crew sprinting to their posts and foot soldiers arming themselves for combat.

"Wings one through seven, move to intercept positions and prime your boarding vessels," he continued, his eyes scanning the projected entry coordinates. "Wings eight through ten, take up support positions and minimize their window of escape."

"Ensign Pond," he jolted, his subject clear though his vision remained steadily affixed to the panels.

"Sir!" Pond eagerly replied, snapping her body back to attention stance.

"Return to the nav deck, they're going to need your help," Salk ordered, his tone nonetheless imperative while subtly lacking in enthusiasm.

"R-right away, sir," she followed, coy in her response as she turned to face the lift at the rear of the observation deck. "good luck, Captain."

Just beyond the gravity well, they popped into view, a cloud of debris caught in their warp trails shooting passed as they exited the jump. The pitch-black void about them now glistening with the rays reflected off their orange and burgundy hulls, there could be no mistaking them. Far from a classic Androssian assault formation, their flagship and dreadnoughts lay cocooned in a defensive bubble of support ships surrounding them. Obviously, though poorly, adapted from Cornerian fleet strategy. As soon as they had arrived, the fleet began turning about to not only broadside their incoming attackers, but also to set in sight their next objective, MacBeth, its rusty hues glinting just within eyesight. All, except one. A once feared instrument of planetary annihilation, it stood now little more than a remnant of the early stages of a war long passed. Even so, far separate from its allies, it made no such turn. Its prow, having been annexed by elaborate paintings of ancient war apes which sprawled all the way down its port and starboard where the name 'Troades' lay faded from years of conflict, pointed squarely in the interceptors' path.

"Hahaha!" A maniacal, almost squeaky voice laughed, "Lying in wait, just as I suspected!" Though small in stature, his position atop a hastily constructed throne meant he had a clearer view than all others of the command module he sat dead center in, even as it stood dimly lit in emergency lighting.

"Divert power to main shields and open all cooling vents!"

"Admiral Oikonny! Sir!" One of his many lackeys reported, any identity which could have been extrapolated from his poor posture and doubt riddled tone veiled by a standard issue visor covering his face. "Captain Thaag has finished his preparations. He awaits your command."

"Excellent! Patch him through," Oikonny replied, a snide grin plastering his expression. With a metallic whine, a holo-interface attached to the end of a robotic arm descended from above until its static filled projection lay directly in front of him.

"Yes, my lord," a grizzly voice answered as his image, mostly thick and scraggly hair surrounding a menacing and undoubtedly proud scowl, materialized on the interface.

"Jacob, my friend, the fleet needs more time for our warp drives to cool so that we may make the jump to MacBeth," Oikonny began, an unusual softness in his tone, "I commend you on your courage in accepting this task free of any hesitation.

"Your sacrifice on this day will ensure the preservation and rebirth of our glorious Empire. Legends will sing of your heroism! Your name will transcend our mortal boundaries!

"It will be done my Lord," Thaag replied, tilting his body just so to give a proper bow without creasing the lavish cloak that hung from his shoulders. "Long live Andross!"

"Long live Andross!" The crew comprising the entirety of the command module cried out, their bodies stiffly enacting their former emperor's personal salute towards Thaag as his image phased out.

With a shock-wave powerful enough to rock the fleet beside it, all of the Troades' engines fired at maximum throttle. Jolting in the direction of the Cornerian interceptors, visible plumes of smoke and a rainbow of flames began billowing from its warp drive, only growing in intensity as it bore down on them.


	3. Part 3

Falling Star

Part 3

"Large heat signature emanating from the Androssian dreadnaught!" a voice called out from the droves of servicemen within the bridge, their urgency cutting through the regular commotion around them. It was the first of such observations, but not a moment had passed before they came en masse.

"Energy readings are at fifteen-thousand megawatts and climbing!"

"It's changing course! Projected path puts it on impact trajectory with our boarding party!"

His eyes darting from the main flotilla, Salk lay them nervously on the Troades; the bloom of its fire engulfed hull like a comet of ill omen.

"That damned ape is gonna take them all down with him!" Salk muttered, his head grown downcast and his teeth firmly grit.

"All wings, fall back and focus fire on the dreadnaught!" He roared as he turned to face crew behind him. A noticeable tension carried him as he approached a nearby analysis terminal and leaned in to view it.

"Sir, estimated time of impact is four minutes, thirty-seven seconds, but they're accelerating!" A nervous retriever reported, the captain's upper half well within his working space as his eyes swung about the data shown on it.

"It's not trying to hit them," he returned with grave inflection. Far from his ability to do anything about it directly, the formation of the Cornerian frigates faltered. Each one engaging full reverse thrust, they turned their broadsides to face the incoming sacrifice and desperately began unloading any munitions they could in its direction. Their mass discharge of laser cannons and ion bolts lit the dark void about them with a fantastic light show of space faring firepower, but panicked aiming and the Troades' focused shields proved this a near fruitless effort as it neared them.

"You will know the abyss of oblivion!" The mountain of meat and hair named Thaag sang as sparks flew and warning siren's blared, the cries of the ship's failing hardware echoing around him. Just then, a notification of a distinctly different nature from the others arose on his interface. His attention taken from the impending glory, insidious joy turned to fury. Indication of a lone ship exiting from warp speed on his flank had been picked up, and the identification signal was unmistakable.

"Sir! Allied vessel has entered the gravity well, assault-carrier class!"

"A single carrier?" Salk spoke, his head bobbing up from the terminal and turning to look out the observation platform. "You mean...?"

"Incoming comms, patching it through," a nearby crewman announced. With an electronic whir, Salk's holo-interface lit up like a beacon of hope. As he approached it with curious stride, an all too familiar face materialized from the static.

"This is Great Fox hailing CRN Tredegar," A young vulpes, the spitting image of a long dead war hero, spoke with trademark determination. "Are you receiving me?"

"Star Fox..." Salk replied, his tone droning but nonetheless cooperative. "Your timing is impeccable."

"Oikonny is trying to make the jump to MacBeth," he continued, "and he plans to ensure his escape by overloading one of his dreadnaught's warp drives within our perimeter!"

"Understood," Fox replied, "keep your ships safe, Captain, we'll take care of that dreadnaught." Confident as ever, he turned to face his crew as the holo-comm disconnected. There stood before him a slightly nervous looking toad fiddling with the wrenches hanging from his waist. Behind him, an aging rabbit leaning up against the radar panel his attention had been pulled from. Finally, standing at the door of the main deck, a falcon. With arms crossed and right foot anxiously tapping the floor beneath him, his attention lay solely on the long hallway leading to the hangar bay.

"Can we go now?" The falcon snapped, turning his head just so that his eyes met Fox's, a clear impatience in his gaze. A grin coming to his expression, Fox nodded.

"Let's move out!" He ordered.

"Thought you'd never ask!" The falcon mused as he began sprinting down the hallway, the toad following suit. Fox began to make his way in their direction as well, that is, until he caught a glimpse of his rabbit companion wince in pain and grab his chest trying to do the same.

"Woah," Fox stopped mid stride, dashing to his friend's side as he cursed under his breath. "You alright, Peppy?"

"I'm fine," Peppy returned, gaining his composure back. "It's nothing I can't handle."

"You sure?" Fox pressed, addressing him with utmost sincerity as he placed a hand on his shoulder.

"You're not losing faith in me are ya?" Peppy questioned, giving Fox a sly grin.

"Not a chance," Fox smiled, giving him a reassuring pat. "Just be careful out there okay?"

"Will do," Peppy complied, "go on ahead, I'll catch up." Nodding in agreement, Fox turned back towards the door and sprinted off. Once he was out of sight, Peppy dug a hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a small syringe. His eyes quickly glanced the prescription wrapped around the glass and metal tube. Digoxin, and a heavy amount at that. Turning to look over his shoulder, he caught ROB staring him down from the other end of the deck, completely silent. A light scowl came over him before turning back around, and with minimal movement he rolled up his left sleeve and quickly administered the dose. Placing it back in his pocket and whipping his sleeve back to normal, he gave chase for the others.


	4. Part 4

Falling Star

Part 4

A ferocious wind swept through the hangar as the bay doors slid open, its pressurized environment relinquished to the vacuum of space just outside. Immediately afterwards, one by one, Fox and his Arwings were jettisoned into its cold embrace. Though not close behind the Troades even by astronautical standards, the warp-like speed of the Great Fox, still decelerating from its jump, had generously complimented their launch velocity. From his cockpit vizor, Fox could see Falco's and Slippy's Arwings directly ahead, and their G-diffusers struggling to cope with the immense thrust. Beyond them, their target seemed to grow exponentially in size as they approached it, as did the flames and gravitational distortion from its quickly decaying warp drive. The Cornerian ships had almost completely shattered from their intercept formation, with some engaging full reverse thrust while others attempted to make the turnabout without hitting the vessels abreast them.

"ROB, how much time do we have before that ship overloads?" He asked, priming his firing systems as his android companion's image materialized on his comm-interface.

"Current energy readings suggest a two-minute window before warp core reaches critical mass."

"Okay," Fox began, visualizing his trajectory of engagement ahead, "Charge the H9's to twenty-five percent capacity and await my command."

"Affirmative."

"What'cha thinking, Fox?" Falco interjected, his image appearing alongside ROB's.

"Everyone, move into chain strafing formation," Fox began, syncing his targeting system with the others. "ROB is going to use the ship's main cannon to penetrate the dreadnaught's rearward shields, after which each one of us will fire a laser volley to cripple its main engines.

"Keep in mind that the warp drive is directly connected to the primary manifold," he continued, "we don't want to risk rupturing the core while we're in range, so only use as much laser fire as the targeting system deems necessary, and immediately vacate the area after firing."

"I'm on point," Falco called out.

"Right behind you," followed Slippy.

"Let's get this over with," Peppy concluded.

"Alright, move to engage!" Fox commanded, prompting each of their Arwings to pitch onto the targeting computer's planned trajectory in unison. Meanwhile, aboard the Troades, Thaag stared anxiously at the radar panels. His breath having escalated to a low roar with each exhale, he watched as the Great Fox moved to his direct rear, while the Arwings took up a semi-parabolic curve on his right flank, his engines at the apex. His rage cutting through the rapidly deteriorating state of the ship around him, he understood a tactical pacification maneuver when he saw one.

"You will not interfere!" He cried, striking at the armament interface which had been pre-emptively tuned for just such an occasion as this. In one swift motion, the entirety of the Troades' offensive capability was unleashed with Fox and company as their sole target. His eyes locked on the unfolding events, Salk watched in curious horror, memories of firefly lit nights outside his family's summer home in the Cornerian countryside filling his conscience as the

right broadside of Thaag's ship lit up with anti-spacecraft machinegun fire and barrages of ion bolts better suited to neutralizing battlecruisers.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Fox called out, jerking his Arwing to just barely avoid the artillery which came at him and his comrades seemingly instantaneously given their on-coming speed; not at all helped by the mosaic of master warning signals polluting their heads-up displays. "Try to stay in formation!"

"Fox!" Peppy muttered, having just escaped an ion bolt grazing his left wing, "S-something is..." Unable to finish his sentence, he clutched at his chest and let out a cry of pain the audio equipment could only transmit as empty static. Snagging a peak out of the rear panel of his canopy between dodging incoming fire, Fox caught a glimpse of Peppy doubled over in pain as his Arwing strayed far from formation. Time seemed to slow exponentially as Peppy drifted into the path of an incoming bolt shell, the subsequent blast throwing his Arwing into a blurred tumble almost perpendicular to their angle of attack as it struck his underside.

"Peppy!" Fox cried out, almost succumbing to a similar fate in his panic.

"Peppy's Arwing has sutained critical damage," ROB announced, "his vitals are wavering."

"Slippy! Break off and get Peppy out of here!" Fox ordered, still jamming his ship from side to side to avoid getting hit himself, "Falco! I need you to cover them with your decoys!"

"And what are you going to do?" Falco stammered, his focus shifting erratically from Fox's comm image and the targeting computer indicating that they were nearly in range of the Troades' engines. "You don't have enough firepower to cripple the engines on your own!"

"Don't be so sure," Fox grinned. Swiping away at the heads-up display, he managed to find the armament interface underneath the trove of warning alerts. Among the catalog of ammunition available to his current setup, a leftover from a previous mission lay in wait. One smart bomb, locked on to the dreadnaught's primary thruster


	5. Part 5

Falling Star

Part 5

"Thirty-seconds until Troades reaches critical mass," ROB advised, his electronic voice, giving off a high-pitched buzz, showing even he could feel the looming peril as Fox continued to race towards the dreadnaught's aft section amidst an unending hail of artillery fire. By this point, Slippy was far behind, beginning the process of recovering Peppy's Arwing with his specially mounted magnetic towing mechanism. Falco, on the other hand, remained where he was, not terribly keen on his superior's plan of action as their target neared striking distance. Not far in front of it, allied vessels of the Cornerian navy could be seen well within effective area of the impending overload.

"You're insane!" Falco cried out, his ship showing noticeable signs of damage from the continuous near misses. "You're gonna rupture the core if you use that!"

"If I wanted your opinion I'd ask for it," Fox came back, an eerily calm undertone in his stalwart response. "Peel off and help the others, that's an order."

"Twenty-seconds to critical mass," ROB advised again, his words echoing in Falco's mind as he hesitated in following Fox's command. Any semblance of a snappy comeback escaping him, he cut power to his comms and made way for Peppy's ship with a sharp upward U-turn, just barely escaping impact with an ion bolt as if he hadn't seen it coming. Though he shot past him at nearly the same speed as the oncoming fire, Fox caught an unmistakable glimpse of Falco staring him straight in the eyes from his canopy before disappearing behind him. By this point, his proximity to the Troades rendered him far too close for its ion bolt barrages to be of any great further danger. Yet, the immense volume of the vessel and the scars of past conflicts riddling its hull which dwarfed him and his Arwing were of little relief to his already shell-shocked psyche. He could feel the thrust of the Troades' main engines impeding his progress, though this was the least of his worries. The odds of him escaping this ordeal unscathed could only be veiled under a clouded trance of focus on his objective and the wellbeing of his comrades. Running his finger over the smart bomb's launch mechanism, it was only when his AI companion came back over the comms that he was catapulted back into reality. Ready.

"Ten seconds to critical mass,"

"Fire it now, ROB!" Fox growled, the blood escaping the tight grip of his fingers as he braced himself. As the particle beam materialized on its target area, a terrifying realization befell him. It was far too close. In the chaos of the artillery barrage, ROB's processing power had been dedicated almost solely to assisting the Arwings' evasion and life support systems. All the while, none of them had taken notice of the sharp right turn Thaag had initiated so that he could simultaneously center himself about the Cornerian ships which had taken on a cupping formation to avoid him, and extend the amount of time he could fire on Fox and company as they neared him. He had ended up just abreast of the Great Fox's firing line, and the process could not be stopped now. Like a bolt of heavenly lightning, the laser cannons unleashed their charge mere feet from Fox's Arwing, washing his canopy in a blinding haze of bright white and yellow. Slingshotting him towards the Troades, Fox watched as the well of liquid hydrogen inferno propelling it forward passed repeatedly through his field of view, acutely aware of inevitably answering the call of its piercing abyss should he fail to free himself of the barely controllable somersault he'd found himself in. An eerily warm numbness swept through him as he inhaled deeply. Though his eyes burned from the sensory bombardment of everything happening around him, they remained wide open and bloodshot from the release of adrenaline. Every muscle in his body contracting as if from electric shock, a howl of pain escaped him, and yet, he could hear nothing. In that moment, a distant memory of staring out into the vast expanse of the night time sky, and the almost artificial silence that surrounded him when he had experienced it, had found a center in him, and he in it.


	6. Part 6

Falling Star

Part 6

A groan escaped Captain Salk as vision slowly returned to his eyes, bloodshot and throbbing in their sockets. Darkness, only mildly superimposed by a soft glow of pulsating red surrounded him, his only indication that he was lying hooked up to a life support machine somewhere in the Tredegar's medical bay. Sounds of scuffling boots and gasps for breath from some other place in the general vicinity replaced a whining screech which had momentarily deafened him, and he too found almost asthmatic struggle in taking his next breath, even aided by an automated respirator. As tangible sensation returned to him, so too did the immense pain of whatever had just occurred. His hands felt worn down to the bone underneath his gloves, and his arms had gone numb, the muscles and ligaments having been seemingly stressed beyond their limit of functionality. The slightest movement below his neck was met only with sharp winces of pain shooting through his entire body, and sitting himself up was all but impossible as a result of multiple layers of gauss cocooning his center of mass.

"He's coming to, vitals are stabilizing," a soft female voice veiled behind a hazmat mask spoke as two bodies dressed in heavenly white shuffled around him.

"Captain Salk, you're in the ICU, try to remain calm," another masked voice said as its speaker approached, "The blast from the Troades' meltdown shattered the safety glass on the bridge, and you were nearly sucked into space."

"O-Oikonney," Salk muttered through the haze of double-visioned vertigo as he turned his head to face the medics beside him, the pain in his eyes much too severe to look at them without doing so. Stepping back from his bed, the three of them glanced silently at each other, reluctant to meet the furious leer that had come over his expression. He already knew the answer to the question that came soon after. "Where is Oikonney?"

"Captain, I need you to listen carefully," one of them began, boldly stepping back toward him and even more boldly placing a hand on his shoulder. "What I'm about to tell you... might shock you." Salk froze.

"You were standing at the helm of the bridge when the Troades overloaded. When the shockwave hit us, your body was impaled by shards of safety glass at multiple points on your chest and abdomen.

"We were able to remove all of the glass from your body, but I'm afraid the open wounds that resulted allowed high amounts of alpha radiation to enter your bloodstream."

"What... are you saying?" Salk growled, staring the medic addressing him straight in his eyes whenever they happened to have the gut to stare back at him. For a moment, the hurried commotion about them blurred with the quickening metronome of his heart rate monitor into a deafening ambience. The one standing closest to him inhaled deeply, and began to speak, until another voice cut through.

"Nathan!" His subordinate, Pond, cried out from the other side of a glass barrier opposite the room from him. Bolting for the sliding door just abreast it, her entrance to his unit was immediately blocked when two of the other medics rushed to obstruct her.

"Miss, you can't be in here right now!" One of them shouted, the both of them requiring all their strength to keep her from approaching him.

"Let me see him!" She thrashed, digging the phalange of her boots into the floor beneath her, desperately trying to inch her way through the threshold of the door. Rotating his head around to see her, a dagger of pain shooting through him as he did, Salk caught a tear fall from her exhausted eyes as she struggled.

"Let her through," he commanded, bringing the lot of them to a shuddering stop from his stalwart tone. "That's an order." A look at him and back at each other preceded their eventually compliance, stepping aside and allowing her to sprint to his side.

"I heard what happened, but they wouldn't tell me anything!" Pond sobbed, dropping to her knees and grasping at his right arm where it lay beside him. "Are you okay?" Yet another silence fell upon the room, broken up only momentarily by her tearful gasps. Not a word was spoken by any of the three medics, nor would they make eye contact with her or Salk.

"Yeah, I'm gonna be just fine," he replied, his tone far more tender and manufacturing the most convincing smile he could as his eyes met hers, "nothing I can't handle."

"I'm glad," Pond sighed in great relief, her tears turning to those of joy as she lowered her head and shut her eyes as if they'd never done so until that point. "I was so worried about you." His smile quickly fading, he managed to look past her towards the door. There, he noticed that one of the medics was no longer in the room with them. Rather, he spotted him on the other side of the glass barrier. Seemingly speaking to someone just out of view, only their silhouette projected by the dim emergency lighting was visible to him. Watching attentively, his eyes followed the medic as he finished his conversation and returned through the sliding door.

"Captain," he began, stopping just inside the door, "there's someone else here who wants to speak with you." Salk's eyes darted from him to the silhouette as it approached, becoming more defined as it neared the glass. Though well aware of who it was, he struggled to hold back a subtle flinch as his eyes as fell upon Falco Lombardi now standing in the frame of the door. Silent, and a clear tension in his stance, he stared Salk down from across the room.


	7. Part 7

Falling Star

Part 7

"T-mius seven seconds," a uniformed crew member began, his face illuminated only by the glow of a three-dimensional plasmagraph showing pre-recorded frames of the day's events. "Fox's Arwing is clipped by the Great Fox's primary laser cannon." Gathered around the display, Salk, still near mumified in medical gauss and submitted to a wheelchair, Falco, and a select few of the division's high-ranking commanders looked on with silent cynicism as he walked them through it.

"T-minus five seconds," he continued, "Fox's Arwing enters a high velocity somersault as a result of the impact, experiencing gravitational force in excess of ten times that of Corneria sea level." His head sinking deeper and deeper with each passing word, a vicious sigh escaped Falco as the fingers of his right hand tapped away on his left forearm.

"T-minus three seconds – Fox fires one smart bomb, managing to strike a direct hit on the Troades' main engines."

"T-minus one second – the following blast catapults Fox's Arwing down underneath the Troades' hull. Simultaneously, the damage from the smart bomb ruptures the engine's primary manifold." A twitch breaking out from his strained brow, Falco slammed his hands down onto the display, sending a deafening reverberation through the room.

"So where's Fox!?" He roared, leering into the flinching crewman's eyes.

"Mister Lombardi, I understand your frustration-" Salk attempted to say, only to be promptly interrupted by the subject of his diffusion.

"Don't give me that crap, Salk!" Falco snapped, extending an index finger towards him in full disregard of any formal show of respect. "I didn't come here for you to refresh my memory. I saw the whole thing."

"Stand. Down." Salk growled, a clear lack of impression unrelenting in his tone as he stared the pilot down from across the display. "If you desire my help in figuring out what happened to your friend, then I strongly suggest you learn your place aboard my ship. You're lucky I even allowed you in here."

"The Cornerian fleet is not obligated in any way to assist you, mercenary. You'd do well to remember that." The realization that burning unfortunately essential bridges was also not what he came here to do hitting him like a brick wall, Falco relaxed himself back into an upright stance and returned his arms to a crossed position.

"Go ahead," Salk spoke, clear in his intention though he was unable to turn his head to directly address the still shaken crewman. Taking a moment to compose himself, the crewman nervously activated the final frame.

"T-minus zero," he shuddered. Plunging the room into an ominously noticeable darkness in contrast to the previous frames, the lot of them could only look in awe as a gaping maw of pitch black rippling into the vacuum surrounding it lay where once stood a formidable war vessel, and Fox's Arwing along with it. "Troades' warp drive enters overload, and the rupture allows all eighteen-thousand megawatts of power to escape into the manifold, creating a concentrated free radical region of warp space."

"Meaning?" Falco asked, looking to each of the members present for an explanation he could find coherent.

"Troades generated a warp stream when the manifold was ruptured, but it was unable to channel power through to the engines, which would have otherwise allowed it alone to travel to the other side in a stable manner." Salk explained, head lowered and eyes shut. "Instead, the stream was opened directly inside the warp drive, and it swallowed whatever was nearby, your friend included."

"That is correct," the crewman confirmed, shifting his weight back to a less defensive stance.

"Okay, so we just have to find out where the stream was opened to," Falco reasoned, developing a slight pacing motion as he pieced everything together. "The warp drive wouldn't be able to generate one without a destination, right?"

"True, but the only way we'd know for sure would be to access the Traodes' itinerary computer, which, well..." The crewman replied.

"Wait, so wouldn't that mean he'd have to be somewhere in the Lylat system?" Falco jumped, moving back to the display and leaning onto it towards him.

"Theoretically, yes," he confirmed, "and seeing as Androssian warp drives have notoriously short jump limits, it's possible he's relatively close."

"That's all I need to hear," Falco declared, beginning immediately for the door with a tensioned stride.

"The division will search the systems between here and Corneria as we head back for repairs; I'd start with Venom if I were you," Salk said.

"Way ahead of you, Salk," Falco replied, raising his left hand in a half executed send off as he made way through the door towards the shuttle bay. This plasmagraph powering down as he exited, the usual cold fluorescent lighting of standard operation returned to the room. With it, an even colder silence lingered as the commanders awaited the golden words, a drowsy glaze having come over their eyes.

"You are dismissed," Salk stated, prompting all but the crewman to spring from their aching stances and leave with a compulsory salute.

"Take me to my quarters," he lazily beckoned to the crewman, the pain of relying on a subordinate to move him from place to place only slightly overtaken by the pain still running through his arms.

"Right away, sir." The crewman complied, racing behind him and pushing him out the door. As he entered the hallway, two things became infuriatingly apparent. The squeaks and bumps from the chair rattling down the hallway as they turned into it would have been foremost in his mind, that is, had it not been for a sickly-looking hare leaning up against the wall adjacent the door. Still unable to turn his head, he caught but a glimpse of the swollen and discoloration encompassing his left eye, and the utterly downtrodden look that over shadowed his disposition, before it too disappeared behind him.


	8. Part 8

Falling Star

Part 8

Exhale. As if trapped under water until that moment, Fox broke from his comatose state to a coat of blinding diffuse light breaking through the overcast above him, and the smell of burning metal and wire filling the cockpit. A wince of pain having passed from the adjustment, he rubbed the disorientation from his eyes and took a moment to look himself up and down, feeling for any sign of injury, internal or otherwise. Nothing, save for a minute tingling sensation which pervaded his entire body, and a chill that ran up his spine, dredging memories of swimming in ice water as a kid. Bringing his hands to view in front of him, the particularly muted feeling at the very tips of his fingers became apparent. Pondering on some kind of justification to this, his visual focus slowly shifted from his hand to what lay beyond. It was then that something of greater immediate concern occurred to him, staring back at him from beyond his mangled cockpit. His gaze, stricken with morbid curiosity, kept him as he opened the canopy.

Stepping out onto the mound of agitated gravel cradling the Arwing, its volume a culmination from an angled point of impact some distance behind them, his eyes befell the unmistakable carpet of grass. Green grass, and massive evergreen trees sprouting from a nearby tree line which encompassed him abreast a backdrop of jagged, ice crowned mountain peaks; blankets of fog sweeping through the valleys between. The overpowering silence on the backdrop of occasional gusts of hollow wind, however, occupied him most of all. Even the Arwing, crippled where it lay, was still. Scars of intense struggled riddled its exterior, and overheat emanated from its hull, yet it gave no indication of anything mechanically detrimental.

Spooked by the ominous atmosphere, Fox lept up the mound and back into the Arwing's cockpit. His eyes darting back and forth from control module to tree line, he attempted to get it started. Nothing; not even a desperate choke for life. However, the faint illumination of the control interface upon the attempted ignition meant electricity remained in some capacity. Picking his visor up off the cockpit floor, he threw it around his head and began transmitting.

"CRN Tredegar, this is Fox McCloud of the Great Fox, over." he began, finding his throat unusually dry as he spoke. "CRN Tredegar, do you copy?" Naught but a thin static replied. Shifting back to the control interface, he diverted what power he could salvage to the comms relay, boosting the signal as much as he could. Still, only the drone of cosmic radiation answered his call. Plopping back down into his seat, curiosity turned to confusion, an undertone of fear swiftly washing over him. Even an underpowered relay would be able to reach a friendly ship in orbit. This was assuming, of course, that he had indeed found himself on the surface of Titania, a notion the feasibility of which had long since wavered. Returning once more to the interface, a seemingly just as farfetched notion having occurred to him, he adjusted the output frequency. Having last tuned to it at the onset of the Cornerian invasion, he hoped he had remembered it correctly.

"Corneria Terrestrial Guard, come in," he began again, "this is Fox McCloud of the Great Fox, are there any outposts receiving me?" His heart racing as he lifted his finger from the input button, a horrifying reality befell him as yet again he was met with the empty wail of static. An urge to vomit crept up on him as he slowly exited the Arwing, anxiously scanning the tree line for signs of potentially hostile life. Just as he was about to collapse onto the base of the gravel mound, a distant memory of days past in basic training caught him. Every recruit had undergone survival training, despite the notoriously low probability of them ever needing to use it for any extended period of time. This was no time to fall victim to panic, and the reassurance of his having apparently cheated death filled him with a newfound determination as he pulled his blaster from its holster and checked its battery. Seventy-one percent.

"Great day to forget to charge it," Fox groaned, slipping it back onto his waist as he planned a path through the forest before him. Water, food shelter. Water, food, shelter. This descending order of basic necessities dominated his thoughts as he entered the threshold of the alien flora. That is, until his ears perked upwards, catching the emergence of a distant hum. Behind him, no, above.

Squinting to find any break through the cloud cover, he could only watch and listen as the hum turned to an aery roar. A microburst of pressurized agitation developed in the overcast, and from it began a rain of fire and metal. The ground beneath him shuddered, and its roar only intensified as ever increasingly large bits of artificial machinations descended from the heavens. Though they landed easily days' worth of walking in distance from him, their impact sent palpable shockwaves through the planet surface. Then, as if sentient of some great threat, the same agitation above turned to a chasm opening up in the sky. An adrenaline-fueled fascination overcame Fox as his eyes refused to break from what could only be described as most of what used to be the Troades crashing to the very planet he needed to escape in a cascade of flame and scrap metal. A gust of wind whipped up from its dramatic effect on local atmospheric pressure rustled Fox's cold fur as he watched it disappear behind one of the many mountain ranges surrounding his crash site, his feet sensing the unmistakable thrush of its impact. Stamping out the opposite facing tracks of his previous steps, he made for its landing site.


	9. Part 9

Falling Star

Part 9

The scrape and squish of his boots on the forest marsh surrounding him echoed Fox's wandering thoughts as he dredged its trees and bogs. Questions harboring an infuriating lack of concrete answers flooded his conscience, turning the wilderness slowly passing him by into a manifestation of his trance of survival instinct. It was only when his watch released a terrifying beep, which would have otherwise scheduled a hot meal, that he found himself entirely fatigued, having scaled the better half of a steep mountain face. Upon subsequent observation of the sky above, it became clear that whatever daytime this foreign body experienced was swiftly coming to an end, the trail of carbon and ash he had been guiding himself with having disappeared into the wind and darkening sky. A sigh having escaped from his recovery exhale, he spotted a small cavity in the mountainside underneath a stone ridge which jutted out from the ground. It would barely protect him from any inclement weather, but it couldn't be worse than sleeping out in the open; a discernment he soon came to before gathering an arms full of twigs and branches from the ground.

Upon approaching its entrance, however, the glaze which had come over his expression suddenly turned to an intense curiosity. The cavity was not of natural construction, a conclusion inferred by the discovery not only that the cavity extended far beyond his initial observation, but that its unknown distance was lined by smooth walls clearly created by some kind of tool or machine. A strange calm came over him as he stared into the black abyss, far beyond his diminishing ability to view. His isolation having been reduced from an absolute was now well within the realm of possibility, and that was enough to persuade him to arch himself forward a bit and take the first step into the unknown it presented him.

Hello?" he spoke into it, never having thought he would appreciate the sound of his voice reverberating off of its walls barely wide enough to fit even his relatively small frame as much as he did. Still, no reply was given, and the only surprise in that seemed to be that fact that anything seemingly man made had found itself in a place like this at all. On that, he pulled the single road flare from the emergency pouch on his belt and lit it, a lump developing in his throat as he ventured forth at the hope to find whatever lay at the end of before it was consumed so he could use it to light a fire like he had originally intended.

Atleast fifty yards had been traversed, guided only by the menacing and claustrophobic red glow of the flare revealing only further bare stone walls before he finally came upon a room only slightly wider than the tunnel that led to it. In the center, a rusted metal contraption resembling a lever of foreign engineering sat atop a small altar of sorts was all that it contained. Placing the dying flare on the ground next to him, he leveraged himself on its edge and pulled with what little strength he could muster until the lever slowly cocked into place. A rumble began thundering through the tunnel walls, quickly replaced by the grinding sound of old machinery before the room began descending downward away from the tunnel. Emboldened only by the reality that the flare would surely die before he made it back out even if he decided to turn back now, the confidence that he could fairly easily find his way back from that place, and the lingering hope that some semblance of civilization would be found, he stood in anxious silence as he awaited the destination he was being brought to.

Only a minute or so had passed before the platform stopped, revealing to Fox yet another room. This one, however, was noticeably larger as indicative by the fact that he couldn't see the walls it was built around with what little light the flare still emitted. What he did find, however, far outweighed his concern for that. There, just outside the elevators exit, sat jars and vases containing scraps of a small variety of dried grains and meats. Immediately dropping the kindling and even the flare, he fell to his knees and began feasting on what little he could find. Though well aware of the fact that it wouldn't be nearly enough to constitute a full meal, especially in a survival situation, he still found himself lost in the short moment that it was available to him. Unbeknownst to him, and rather fortunately given his loss of focus on it, the road flare behind him had rolled into the pile of kindling and, with its final spark, ignited it into small flame. The sudden bolstering illumination that filled the room, helped in no small part by the elevator platform rising back up to the tunnel on its own, snapped Fox's attention back from his ravenous hunger. Shuffling towards the kindling as it began to smolder, he hastily arranged it into an adequate blaze before his attention was yet again ensnared by what it revealed to him.

Inscriptions, whether linguistic or artistic he could not discern, sprawling top to bottom along every inch of the walls which enclosed him. Slowly coming to his feet, he ran his fingers down its texture to find that it's mosaic was comprised of both painted symbols and etchings connecting them all like roots sprouting from a center further down the wall. Slowly turning his head in the direction they seemed to be channeling to, his eyes befell a scene on the adjacent wall resembling classical frescoes he'd only seen decorating the halls of formal military banquets back on Corneria. Intricately detailed depictions of beings remarkably similar to those found throughout the Lylat system could be seen gathered around a stepped pyramid lavished with bountiful harvests and fine silk garments, and at the top stood an elderly looking individual beckoning his apparent constituents to a symbol of a spiraling torrent bracketed on top, bottom, and its sides by smaller triangles above him which dwarfed all others.

By the time he'd established reasonable accommodations, at least in terms of his situation, the dark of night had taken full possession of the forest from which any semblance of organic life beyond flora yet refused to make itself known. Huddled into an upright ball to stave off the worrying drop in temperature, he rested his head on his forearms which straddled his knees. The slowly dying flame in front of him did well to shield him from the cold, though he found greater comfort in his fixation with the tips of the wisps fading into the air which distracted him from the ever increasing weight of his fight-or-flight thoughts unyielding in their encroachment on his psyche, even if only momentarily, as well as the now impeding curiosity towards to the nature of the odysseic scene which surrounded him. Still, he couldn't help but find himself brought back to them, particularly when he decided somewhat randomly to check the time on his watch, its civilized glow of blue and confirmation of his place outside the circumstances he had realized he'd taken for granted triggering a painful whine from his still unsatisfied stomach. The fatigue finally taking the place of urgency, he leaned back onto the makeshift leaf mattress, and once he'd found a position he could at least hope wouldn't leave him crippled by morning, the weight of his weary eyes gradually overtook him.


	10. Part 10

Falling Star

Part 10

Darkness met darkness, as if he'd never awoken at all, as Fox's eyes creaked open. For a moment, the memory of his whereabouts escaped him, something he had reveled in during his slumber but could no longer escape beyond that fleeting reorientation. Feeling his way up and along the wall he had propped himself against as he rose with a yawning grunt, the texture of the inscriptions on the walls following his fingertips, he eventually found the lever which would call the elevator back down to his level. The gurgling sound of its machinery now almost pleasant to him, he cricked his back of the misaligned disks resulting from his over night posture until it eventually reached him. As the platform made itself flush with the floor he stood on, a shaft of light cascading down from the tunnel leading back out onto the mountainside gave him one last visual recollection of the room he'd taken refuge in as he stepped onto it. Peering into the mired void beyond what little the light from outside was able to show him, an intense curiosity to explore further beyond it came over him, particularly at the prospect of finding more food, and possibly even people. To that, he unholstered his blaster, the high beam flashlight adorning the end of its barrel tempting him with all manner of unknowns. The less than ideal charge percentage staring back at him as he pondered, however, persuaded him otherwise as the platform began rising back upwards to eventually cut off any further investigation. Turning his head downwards to properly reholster it, ominous signs something which he had not seen traversing down into that place caught the attention of his weary eyes. Foot prints, several organisms worth.

Kneeling down to examine the prints in the increasing field of light, it became apparent to him too that they were not of benign intention. Rather, the disconcertingly clear grooves etched into the stone platform implied heavily that they had been thrashed into it. His focus transfixed on them in that moment, he almost didn't notice once the platform had reached the surface layer, whereupon he noticed the tracks leading both in to and out of the tunnel. Drawing his blaster once again, this time in reaction to a more dreadful curiosity, he took aim squarely at the exit and began inching towards it. His heart pounded in his chest as all of the survival instincts he had suffered through the previous day came flowing back into him ten fold. He could feel his legs shivering from the rush of adrenaline which almost compelled him to charge at whatever lay on the other end of the gate of light before him, and even the gentle gusts of wind caught by the tunnel's vacuum seemed a call of the void to his oxygen eviscerating body.

After what he'd have sworn was an eternity, the view to the outside finally came to his bloodshot eyes. Lowering the barrel, though not his trigger finger, he dashed the last few feet to the entrance and propped himself up against the right side wall. Not a sound besides the rustling of the leaves permeated from the outside, yet his head was awash with the static of combat readiness as he slowly peaked out. All at once, his momentum halted. Nothing. Even the tracks leading out seemed to fade into the solitude under the canopy. Lowering his blaster yet again, his head dipped to veil an infuriated sigh into his jacket collar as the compounded aftershock of the moment and those that led up to it crawled up his spine. Fight, survive, run – die – it all coagulated into an intense isolation to which he could only respond by kicking a piece of stone that had fallen out of the tunnel's ceiling into the mud outside before carrying on.

The icy wind whipped at his back, further unfurling his already mangled hair. Its mind numbing whistle as it traversed this and nearby peaks drowned out only by the sound of his jacket brushing against him in response to its push as he pulled himself onto the summit. Finally free of the blindness the valley he'd landed in had forced upon him, he was now able to survey a far truer scale of his marooning. Across the curvature of the horizon, his eyes befell a seemingly endless array of mountainscape interrupted only by the mild temperate forests and blankets of cloud and mist occupying the dips between their bluffs. This came as no particular surprise, though the persistent absence of any birds in the sky or their songs echoing through it struck him yet again. The rarity of seeing anything bigger than the occasional bird of prey or grazing mammal even in the Cornerian countryside was no strange notion to him, and yet the absolute void of fauna, or at least their refusal to make themselves known to him, as if none had ever lived here at all, pervaded into a finality he had been reluctant to accept until that moment. Even the memory and implications of his overnight stay rallying in his mind was not sufficient to stay the sagging of his body downward with a melancholic sigh. Upon inhaling to redouble his resolve in the face of such overwhelming stimuli, however, the scent of burning metal and wire caught his nose. His ears perking upwards, he stepped lightly over the summit's apex and perched himself such that he could get a view of the valley it declined into. There, beneath a light haze of smoke billowing from its carcass at the crescendo of a substantial clearing it's trajectory of descent had ripped into the valley marsh, lay what remained of the _Troades_.


	11. Part 11

Falling Star

Part 11

The waxed maple finish of a walking cane leaning up against the left arm of Salk's chair stood in brilliant compliment to the grandeur of a Cornerian Naval Intelligence hall. About its atmosphere heavily laden with modernized aesthetica of classical antiquity, carried hums of interplanetary engines faded into the buzz of the fluorescent lights and the brush of the climate control A calm leer pervaded Salk as he looked the panel overseeing his hearing up and down, his eyes pausing at the diffuse bands of white reflecting off their ranks, and the restrained colors of the garments worn by those without.

Ministry of Defense correspondents, as evident by their bars in contrast to the stars and emblems adorning the hems official military officers, juxtaposed by a select few councilors of privileged connection. Between them shuffled various briefings, notes, and subsequent hushed conversations, while the eyes of a mastiff bisecting them traveled along the pages a bound report underneath a pair of black reading glasses. His head suddenly rising, he looked first to Salk, their eyes meeting only for a moment before he swept the benches flanking him and sat himself forward. A silence descended over the hall as their eyes turned to him.

"This hearing will commence henceforth," he spoke, drawing the rest of the panel to face towards their subject. "Division Commander Nathaniel Salk, please stand." Grasping at the handle of his cane, Salk pulled himself out of the chair, masking a aching grunt with his breath as he came to a dignified stance.

"Commander Salk, you oversaw an engagement with the Venomian flotilla, lead by Andrew Oikonney, attempting to escape to MacBeth." he began, each word shadowing over Salk as he listened. "By your report, Oikonney managed to escape, the fleet suffered considerable damage, and a close ally is presumed dead. This committee will now probe the details of the engagement, and its results, and determine a consequence appropriate for these results." His body still, Salk gave a slight tilt of the head in confirmation.

"Do you have any questions before we begin?"

"Are the admirals to be present for this discourse?" Salk asked, raising his head to glance about the panel, noting the minute shifts in their positioning they gave in response.

"They will not," the mastiff dismissed, "this matter does not fall under their jurisdiction."

"We disagree," a voice, confident in tone and a rough edge to its subtle spite refuted as it arose from the hall's audio system. Following its utterance, three holocomm interfaces manifested from the projectors behind the panel, voice only displays numbering them 01 to 03 standing where normally would stand digitized bodies and faces.

""What is the meaning of this?" a council member on the mastiff's right stammered, coming to his feet and turning to face them. "Disconnect these intruders at once!"

"Rather unbecoming to dismiss admiralty from a naval intelligence hearing, is it not?" the third of them retorted, his damning indictment accentuated by the nasal delivery of each word.

"Aye?" the councilor double took, his weight momentarily shifting to his back foot.

"Admiral Kong, sir" Salk acknowledged, a tension in his voice as he mustered a stand at attention. "If I may be so bold, I was hoping you'd be able to appear in person."

"I concur," the member sniped, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his head to the side.

"The councilor will respect too the due process of this hearing and stay himself." the mastiff thundered from his composure. His assumed support now having subdued him, the councilor begrudgingly sank slowly into his chair and turned back to face Salk.

"My thanks. Truly, such an arrangement would have been preferable," the one named Kong assured him, "But as the Premier's state of emergency withstands, protocol requires that we not bring unnecessary risks as those upon ourselves, I'm sure you understand."

"Painfully," Salk muttered, "may I sit?"

"Please," the mastiff allowed, prompting yet another wince and growl from Salk as he descended. "Admiral Kong, the presence of you and your Board is nonetheless uninvited, and as such will be interpreted as a breach of authority provided you cannot ascertain a meaningful justification."

"By order, and on behalf of the honorable General Pepper, The Board of Admirals will join in hearing the case of Commander Salk, and render unto him his personal reciprocation." the second of them explained, the deep texture of his voice scraped by a layer of compounded tobacco smoke inhalation. Bringing his head back up as a flurry emerged from the panel, Salk eyed their displays one by one, sure in his assumption that they were staring back at him from behind their veils.

"No such action was submitted for the approval of the Ministry prior to this gathering, hence I cannot accept this motion." the mastiff came back, a noticeable agitation beginning to show in his disposition.

"As would precede a hearing conducted without his knowledge," the third indicted once more, "would the right honorable Minister have me believe that wars are won on a foundation of deception? Perhaps he should be reminded of the real issue here." The echoes of those words freshly dissipated, a moment of calm only interrupted by the squeaks of a few moving chairs passed before the mastiff again leaned forward.

"Very well," he began, his speech seemingly strangled, "The Board of Admirals will be permitted to attend on the mutual understanding that final judgment will be delegated solely to this panel."

"I am glad reason yet prevails," Kong followed, the smile on his hidden face evident in his minutely snide tone. "Do please go on."


	12. Part 12

Falling Star

Part 12

"This committee recognizes first the Honorable Minister of Staff, Elijah Cannaes," the mastiff chairman began, the length of the board struggling to avoid any kind of attention paid to the admirals behind them as they turn to face him.

"Thank you, Mister Chairman," the one called Cannaes replied as he rose to his feet and subtly adjusted his clothing. "Commander Salk, would I be correct in my conclusion that you were aware of the desperation of Oikonny's position prior to your engagement with him?"

His lowered head hanging above the support of his elbows propped on the table he occupied, Salk leaned forward just so to deliver his agitated response. "Yes."

"I see," Cannaes replied, clearing his throat before continuing his interrogation, "would I then be correct in my assumption that you were knowledgeable beyond a reasonable doubt of the risks associated with engaging a formidable opponent in such a position absent of the timely arrival of any equally formidable support?"

"Mister Cannaes, all tactical maneuvers involve grave risk," Salk answered, only just maintaining the composure of his half-hearted response, to which the minister gave a mere derisive exhale.

"No further questions, Mister Chairman." he concluded, confident of the implications made as he took back to his seat and began scrawling notes among the many papers laid before him.

"This committee next recognizes the Honorable Ministress of Extraplanetary Coordination, Belisarius Kursk."

"Thank you, Mister Chairman," the next interrogator called out, bolting out of her chair to a stiff upright position. Her eyes having first cut into Salk with a menacing glare, she then began to read off a prepared script from a bundle of perfectly aligned papers in her dominant hand.

"Commander Salk, your division was operating on the prime directive of ultimate apprehension or termination of Andrew Oikonny, correct?" she began, pausing her train of thought so that Salk could affirm the direction of her inquiry, "and you were aware of the option to terminate when assessing and acting upon the engagement, yes?"

"That is correct," Salk replied.

"Despite this, however, you authorized the organization of your division into an offensive wing formation such that a high speed boarding maneuver could be executed," she described, her eyes only breaking from their leer into his so that she could momentarily reference her own words. "Am I to conclude, and is this committee in turn to conclude, then, that you had authorized this maneuver with the intention of capturing Oikonny alive?"

"I had hoped that would be the result, yes." Salk confirmed, a rising pain and tension inside of him buried under a growing friction in his hand.

"Commander Salk," Kursk began again, a snide confusion having come over her expression, "I happen to know that a fair portion of your ships, including your own, are equipped with armaments capable of at the very least inflicting crippling damage to Androssian cruisers such as the one designated as Oikonny's own flagship."

"I also happen to know that your division was well within effective range of the Androssian flotilla to have actualized such an outcome." she continued. "Why then, I must ask, was an extremely reckless and, frankly, unnecessary boarding maneuver chosen as your course of action in this instance?"

"Past experience has taught me that making martyrs out of the enemy is not a sound strategy when trying to quell insurrections, especially given the cult of personality that surrounds Oikonny and his uncle." Salk explained, his feet firmly planted on the ground below him.

"Contrary to popular belief, I prefer to keep people, whether they be Cornerian or Venomian, alive; and I was confident that information valuable to his cause could be siphoned from him – had we been successful."

"And yet here we are," Kursk soothed, her tone having grown in scorn as she lowered her script to her side, "Oikonny continues to plague our republic, and we've yet anything to show for it in months."

"Not quite," a raspy voice from behind the voice-only display labeled 03 suddenly piped up, "has the Honorable Ministress so easily forgotten that Jacob Thaag, one of Oikonny's most decorated and trusted captains, was also lost in the engagement?" Though the room remained dignified following this unprompted statement, the ire directed towards him in response to it was nonetheless prevalent to everyone.

"Admiral Massa, you will abide by the rules of discourse in my court and refrain from speaking out of turn," the chairman mastiff growled in quick succession, "do not mistake my allowance of your presence here as any form of submission. Your statement will be retracted from the record, and if you repeat this behavior I will disconnect you from the hearing."

"My apologies, Mister Chairman, I've no objection to your oversight here," Massa followed, "In accordance with said rules, however, I would like to request that Miss Kursk's statement be retracted as well." Embittered silence once again dominated the atmosphere as he drew breath to complete his thought.

"That is, unless you will allow gross false witness against a friend and ally."

His head grown downcast as he masked a frustrated exhale by massaging his forehead, the question of whether this frustration was aimed at yet another challenge to his authority and principle or the clear infraction of another member of his posse remained speculative. "Miss Kursk, you have indeed born false witness towards Commander Salk and, as is appropriate, your statement too shall be struck from the record."

"Very well," she replied, a soft groan escaping her as her eyes drew off to the ceiling as if to try and roll. "No further questions, Mister Chairman."

"This committee next recognizes the Honorable Minister of Communications and Procurement, Magnus Aevaris."

"Thank you, Mister Chairman," the minister replied in a droning tone fitting for his manifestly aging appearance as he slowly rose from his chair to a somewhat withered stance. He made no eye contact with Salk, reading from an array of documents on the table before him, though his words nonetheless echoed an introspective belligerence.

"Commander Salk, over the past three months, and up until just weeks before your encounter with the Androssian flotilla, you're personal holo-comm channel recorded four separate transmissions with an unidentified party, the contents of which have been erased or irreparably corrupted," he questioned, his field of view shifting to Salk only after he had finished.

"I-I..." Salk winced, suddenly doubling over where he sat. A muffled ache escaped him before he began viciously couching into his right wrist, the other hand struggling to keep his head off of the table surface. The debilitating fit subdued him for a short while before finally concluding in a final, horrendous expulsion of blood and mucus which coated his arm and beak in bright red.


	13. Part 13

Falling Star

Part 13

Droplets of blood continued to run off Salk's hand and mouth, coagulating into small pools that warped the bands of reflected light on the finished wood table he held himself over as commotion yet again broke out in the hall. Racked with waves of internal trauma, he could only just hear Admiral Kong address the lot of ministers and councilors through the ringing sensation clouding his ears.

"Mister Chairman!" Kong roared, his voice shuddering through the walls. "This madness cannot go on! The good Commander is in need of medical attention, not an interrogation!"

"Order! You will stay yourself in my hearing, Admiral!" the mastiff came back, slamming one hand down onto his bench and thrusting the other towards Kong's holo-panel as he rose to face it.

"Have you no shame?" Kong returned, "I have been steadfast in my recognition of your authority thus far, but I will not stand for blatant abuse of the good Commander!" A vacuum swirled through the cabinet as they stood with baited breath, each holding back charged remarks of their own as he spoke.

"You've had your hearing, and I suspect you carry a preconceived verdict. Render it, and be done with this!" All eyes having jolted to him, not a word came from the Chairman mastiff. Eyes firmly shut, he slowly turned himself back to the bench and sat himself down. He had heard enough.

"Motion to hold Admiral Kong in contempt, all in favor?" he sniped, his tone having morphed to an odd calm as he swept the board for affirmative responses. All were in favor, not that is was much of a surprise to anyone.

"All opposed?" he continued, sparing the admirals even a passing glance to compliment his clear majority. A subtle wince came over him, however, where snide glee should have prevailed. All three admirals, their holo-panels like a marauding shadow cast over the bench, remained silent in staunch denial of his posturing. It was nonetheless a victory, though robbed of sentimental value.

"Carried." the mastiff lorded somewhat more gently than expected. "Disconnect Admiral Kong and his associates, strike all of their statements from the record."

"We will see ourselves out, Mister Chairman." Kong mused, seemingly unmoved by the action. "But before we do... Commander Salk."

"Admiral?" Salk nearly choked in reply, bringing his head up from a myriad of towels and rags applied to him by custodial staff attempting to stymie the mess he'd made.

"Nathan, my friend," Kong began, a soothing calm prominent in his tone. "I will be the first to admit that you have made mistakes in the past, such is the ire of our very existence, but you have proven yourself to be an invaluable asset to our cause and a dear friend at that in spite of it all."

"You have my most sincere condolences for this ailment you have suffered at the altar of our banner, and I wish you godspeed in your struggle against it." he continued, his continued connection to the situation allowed only by those with the power to end it looking on in disbelief. "Your contributions will not go unnoticed, nor shall they be cast down by the likes of such bureaucratic nonsense. Rest assured of that." With his last word having only just finished being uttered, their holo-panels receded into the projector. With all that remained in the atmosphere being disconcerted whispers across the committee, a councilor on the chairman's flank nervously approached him.

"What now, Mister Chairman?" he stuttered, a clear anxiety in his unusual volume control as the words scraped past his mouth. The mastiff lay still, his vision fixed on their contested subjected yet unable to fully compose himself before letting out yet another disgruntled sigh.

"I invoke Bypass Article Three. This hearing shall be postponed for one week while the Commander seeks medical care," he decreed, half heartedly knocking his gavel on the bench to complete a not uncommon, albeit rare disregard of a majority vote on the matter.

"Nathan," he began again, Salk's attention once again brought to the front. "Will you be needing assistance getting to the hospital?"

"I have a chauffeur waiting for me outside," Salk muttered, standing himself up as best he could at the chairman's cue if only to show them he could, not being terribly keen on any of them accompanying him.

"Then you may leave," the chairman mastiff concluded. Coming to his feet and proceeding towards the stairs leading off the bench, he spoke once more, though did not turn to face Salk as he did, "I will pray for you and your family."

Try desperately not to let those words, let alone all else that had been spoken that morning echo inside his head, Salk simply made way for the door. In spite of winces of pain shooting through him with each step, his focus lay solely on all that was not here and now. That kept him grounded, that is, until he pushed the solid wood doors of the hearing room open and the atrium towards the front of the building became visible to him. Where he expected to find a mere acquaintance from the nearby barracks, or perhaps an assistant from the navy hospital, his eyes instead befell Se-jun Pond sitting alone near the front entrance door. Her hands in her lap, she sat content with her gaze off somewhere beyond the curtain panel glass. Salk almost froze, but managed to subdue that reaction just long enough to find cover behind a nearby corner leading into an adjacent corridor.

"I can't let her see me like this," he whispered to himself, that much having been made clear to him when he looked down at the visible blood stains that remained on his hands.

The loose, airy feel of the hearing room almost felt freeing now that Salk found himself underneath the much lower ceiling and atop the far less forgiving tile floor of the bathroom just down the hall. Though the custodians had done a physicians worth trying to clean him up, and hadn't even finished remedying the aftermath from the furniture and carpet when he left, faded stains dried into his feathers and uniform continued to haunt him as he stared back at himself in the mirror, applying handful after handful of hot water. Finally escaping that place had provided an immense sense of relief, yet he could not shake off an even deeper anxiety dragging him down every time he wiped the steam from the mirror, exposing a greater and greater emaciation that had dawned on his expression. Once he was sure no more was clearly visible on his face and hands, he motioned towards the door, but stopped. One last glance into the next mirror down reminded him that his uniform jacket had retained its own splatters, and that no amount of just water would do away with them. Undoing the buttons and ripping it off of his back, he dropped it into the garbage can at the end of the line of sinks and nervously exited.


	14. Part 14

Falling Star

Part 14

Ribbons of warp space streaked past the windows of the observation deck, and while a gentle hum of the engines wafted through the halls and quarters of the Great Fox, the tension lingering in the air rendered the lot of their ears effectively deaf to it. Nervously snacking on bits of freeze dried sea food, Slippy found it uncomfortably difficult to focus on the access port displaying the conditions of the ship's various systems. Rather, he found himself failing to resist the urge to look back and forth between Peppy and Falco. Sitting unusually upright in his chair with both hands grasping at the caps of his knees, Peppy's eyes drooped in their sockets, seemly drained of any semblance of conscious awareness and staring straight through the navigation panel in front of him. Falco, meanwhile, stood stalwartly, almost proudly, at the head of the bridge alongside ROB. The contrast of his body and the fountain of hyper space showering the canopy made a black hole bursting at the edges with fire and velocity of him. Arms tightly crossed and without a word spoken since breaking from the division, his eyes lay firmly affixed at whatever lay ahead as the heavens passed straight through his line of sight.

"Approaching Bolse gravity well. Beginning initial deceleration." ROB coldly announced, his electronic voice almost echoing through the new absence overshadowing the deck.

"Slippy," Falco began, turning his head just so in his direction. "Anything on radar?" Shocked back to reality by the sudden breach in the quiet, Slippy gulped down the bit of food he'd just popped into his mouth before shuffling his attention back to the access port.

"R-ranging is coming up empty, but we'll have a better signal once we exit warp space," he replied.

"How long should it take to completely sweep Bolse's well?" Falco asked, beginning to pace in his direction with head slightly downcast.

"I'd say half an hour at most," Slippy answered.

"ROB, set a flight path to put us at the well's edge when the sweep is finished," Falco commanded, returning to his position at the front of the bridge. "I don't want to be here any longer than we have to be."

"Adjusting itinerary. Calculating." ROB complied, his stiff, brass like exterior straightening out and gently rocking side to side. A numerical scratching noise emanated from behind his laser band oculus, yet he bore no response in the typical frame of time usual of him. Even Peppy found himself shifting his eyes towards him, and caught Falco's mouth about to address the issue.

"Error! Error!" ROB suddenly began wailing, ominous sounds of substantial impacts of unknown origin ramming against the hull following close behind his announcement. "Inconsistency detected in gravitational composition. Initiating emergency stop." Barely an opportunity for Falco to ponder this alert, unheard of until that moment, had presented itself before the luminescent stream faded from view as a menacing creak shuddered through the Great Fox. An unmistakable symptom of sudden release of the warp gear in tandem with full reverse thrust, the lot of them were immediately thrown to the floor directly in front of them, save for ROB thanks in no small part to a strong magnetic connection with the bridge floor.

"Hey! Warn me next time!" Falco snapped, propping himself up with his right arm while his left caressed it, his eyes wincing from the shock of the fall.

"Warning! Warning!" ROB began again, "Impact Imminent! Taking evasive maneuvers!" Those words echoing in his skull, Falco nervously swung his head around only to catch a glimpse of the hulk of eviscerated metal barreling towards them before he was again thrown to the floor by the Great Fox's sudden upward motion. The screech of the engines washed through the bridge as it executed the evasion, though it seemed but a hopeless ambiance to the deafening abrasion that followed just seconds after. The whole bridge seemed to lurch from its structure as the unmistakable clash of metal jolted through the hull; it was far from a lethal embrace, but more than enough to plunge the bridge into the all too familiar dark red of emergency lighting and master alarms.

"Slippy! What's our status?" Falco shouted as he raced to his feet to bring himself along side him.

"No hull breaches," Slippy replied, pulling himself from the floor so that he could see the panel he'd found himself thrown underneath. "Looks like the main gun's been brought offline, though."

"What the hell did we hit?" Falco beseeched, still leaning over Slippy as he calmed the life support systems, though turning his attention back to the front of the bridge.

"U-uh... Falco," Peppy mumbled as he turned slowly in his chair to face them, his tormented expression unyielding.

"What?" Falco growled in response, his tone and scowl scaring the answer out of him more than anything.

"B-Bolse's gravity well – it's no longer uniform," Peppy gulped, only making eye contact with him for moments at a time whenever he did. "It's old radio signal isn't broadcasting anymore either, not even static." Taken aback by this information, all eyes slowly came to the front of the bridge as Falco silently approached it. Intercepting rays from Lylat and her lesser red dwarf revealed to them a lazy, asymmetrical maelstrom of scrap metal chunks, some negligible while some rivaled the size of the Great Fox. At its center, where once stood a formidable military outpost, was now a hollowed out skeleton of vital structural components only vaguely resembling Bolse's true shape. Barely an opportunity to express any kind of confusion or chagrin at this development occurred to them, however, before the bridge became shrouded in the deep red and wailing sirens of the master alarm system.

"What now?" Falco cried out, leaping over to Slippy who's access port lit up with similar warnings.

"Ranging has picked up four light assault craft in striking distance!" he came back, swiping away at the panel to confirm their presence on radar. "They're on intercept course!"

"Single engine fighters?" Falco pondered, glancing at the light blips that signified them before turning back towards the front of the bridge. "All the way out here?" Barely able to complete his thought, his vision was momentarily blinded as three spacecraft shot past the Great Fox, the streaking light from their engine thrust flooding the bridge in rapid strobes of luminosity. Even as his sight returned to him, however, his suspicions quelled to certainty as the fourth and last ship narrowly grazed the observation port. Its canopy in full view to him as it passed, Falco made brief but concrete eye contact with the wolf piloting it.


	15. Part 15

Falling Star

Part 15

"Star Wolf..." Falco muttered under gritted teeth and clenched fists as he started with fury in his step towards the deck elevator. "I do not have time for this!"

"Star Wolf?" Slippy jumped as Falco stormed past, "What are they doing all the way out here?"

"Don't know, don't care," Falco dismissed, "Let's go Slippy, were taking care of them for good." Whether it was fear or the pressure of the moment, Slippy found himself lost for any argument opposed to his command. A thud followed his boots hitting the ground as he made way for the desk lift, however, a lack of any noise indicating he was being followed prompted him to stop while Falco charged ahead of him. Looking back onto the bridge behind him, he could not help but feel a hesitant fog come about him as his eyes befell Peppy, motionless where he sat, his own eyes miserably affixed on the floor beneath him.

"A-are you coming, Peppy?" he asked, almost choking the words out as he searched desperately for some combination of words that would provoke even the slightest positive reaction from his now seemingly robotic companion. A pressure even greater than the rush of the incoming peril made itself known as Peppy's gaze rose to meet his. Terror, confusion, doubt, it was anyone's guess what emotions he could have possibly been conveying as his vision seemed to pass straight through Slippy. Any words he could have mustered in response were immediately sidelined, however, by the sudden onset of incoming laser fire on the Great Fox's shields, their impacts producing a maw of nightmarish echoes as they rumbled through the hull.

"Enemy fire detected," ROB announced, shattering the silence lingering between them. "Diverting power to shields." His heart racing, Slippy creaked himself slowly in the direction of the deck lift, knowing full well that any more stalling would only worsen Falco's ire toward the both of them.

"I..." he began, taking one last look at his dejected friend before he disappeared behind the frame of the door leading to the bridge. "I gotta go."

By the time Slippy had caught up with him, Falco had already strapped himself into his own Arwing; furiously swiping away at switches and access ports as he scythed corners off of regular safety checks. Capping off his rush by slamming the canopy shut around him, he gave one last turn of his field of view. Just so to catch a glimpse not only of Slippy anxiously entering his own Arwing, but of the empty ship in the hangar slot beyond him, and the vacant space beyond that as well.

Bringing his eyes back squarely ahead of him, he released the constraints holding his ship in place and jammed the thrust controls into their maximum output. Pushed back into his headrest, the rushing torrent of jet whine and acceleration perfectly complimented the deafening buzz flowing through his psyche as the fluorescence of the hangar gave way to the infinite black of space in the blink of an eye. Every tactical calculation he could have mustered in that moment, however, turned to pure life or death adrenaline as he was immediately beset by incoming fire from his adversaries who had masterfully positioned themselves to pounce on him.

Master warnings blared from his shield systems which had only narrowly avoided overload from the attack as he threw himself into a barrel roll to deflect any further laser fire. Coming out of the final roll, he timed a u-turn just so to bring his trajectory to port side of the Great Fox, hoping to use her mass as cover.

"I've got their attention, Slips!" Falco radioed to his only support who had yet to embark. "Go to the Fox's starboard and hook around the back, I'm gonna get you a clean shot!"

"I'm on my way!" Slippy confirmed, his own engines whirring in the background.

As Falco's line of sight came around, a glint of red and silver suddenly emerged from the jet black backdrop. Now staring down the barrel of a Wolfen's guns flying directly towards him, primeval instinct drew in as much breath as his lungs could hold as a fog descended over his perception of time. All sense of calm and collection in the seat of his Arwing seemed to escape him as every muscle in his body tensed to the point of snapping. Even as the id within him propagated his survival response by laying into the triggers on his joysticks without any conscious thought on his part, he could not help but feel unbridled rage flow through him as his vision blurred from the intense green strobes of his lasers. Impatience and fear washed over him where usually he felt focus, joy even, not at all helped by the fact that he knew exactly why this was so.


	16. Part 16

Falling Star

Part 16

A flash of bright yellow permeated through the flurry of outgoing laser fire just so to catch Falco's eye, jolting his brain out of its autopilot state in time to watch whoever he'd been shooting at bank off to his starboard side and disappear behind him. Before he'd gotten a chance to wonder if the oncoming Wolfen had even fired back at him, however, his onboard holocomm lit up with an incoming transmission. Still furiously searching for any other enemy craft that might be zeroing-in on him, he could only dedicate a glance when the head of their eponymous adversary arose from the static.

"What are you doing in my territory, foxy boy?" the outlaw named Wolf demanded of him.

"Wrong ship, Einstein," Falco snapped back, refusing even to grant him the courtesy of eye contact, "and isn't it a bit late for questions?"

"Huh? Where is that mutt?" Wolf came back, visibly disconcerted by his old rival's uncharacteristic absence. "He too afraid to come out and face me himself?"

"Funny, I asked him the same thing, but he insisted I could handle this myself." Falco bluffed, watching with dilated pupils as the Great Fox's stern neared. "Guess he doesn't consider you much of a threat anymore!"

"You damned liar! Where is he!?" Wolf howled, stopping just short of attempting to throttle Falco through his holocomm.

"I'd be more worried about myself if I were you, 'cause you're not gonna be around long enough to find out!" Falco sniped, the unending smirk on his face staring back at Wolf suddenly turning to annoyed concern as Wolf inexplicably returned the expression with an added predatory cackle.

"You mean that pathetic frog?" he mused, his fangs beaming in perfect compliment to the crazy emerging from his eyes.

"We're already on top of that!" the Lacertillian named Leon snidely followed as he appeared alongside his cohort's holocomm, his eyes menacingly affixed beyond the interface's camera.

"What!?" Falco roared, rolling his head about only to realize that in his flurry to time the flanking maneuver properly he'd failed to notice that no ship was following him.

"Falco! I've got two of them behind me!" Slippy cried out, the threat now imposed on him clearly evident by the crashing sounds of incoming fire in the background.

"Yes! Scream for me! Scream!" the saliva mired voice which could only belong to Pigma squealed in quick succession as he and Leon bore down on their target.

"You really thought I was gonna fall for that?" Wolf sneered, the grind of his smug voice in Falco's ear nearly enough for Falco to snap his joystick as he grumbled intense expletives behind gritted teeth. "What? Is Fox's playbook in hiding too?"

The true weight of his position now crashing down on his conscience as rage flowed through him in tsunamic waves, Falco's could only lament as the need to figure out what to do next was drowned out by voices endlessly reinforcing this from within and those doubting his ability to do so from without left him paralyzed where he sat. Finally, he cut off all radio channels from non-friendly sources, and though well aware it had arisen from the same muscular response that had caused his initial fit at the onset of the engagement, he found a center of focus in his hand gripping the trigger to charge his main guns and decided in that instant that it couldn't be worse than nothing at all.

"Hang on, Slippy!" he snapped, unable or unwilling to control the deafening volume of his reassurance or to notice the look of frightened uncertainty that found Slippy in response to that and it's lack of clear direction as he clung to his own grasp on the situation. Pulling the controls towards him as hard as he could, he threw his Arwing into a sharp upward pitch while near simultaneously rolling it directly towards the Great Fox's port side. With millimetric precision such that he could have easily touched it were it not for the canopy separating them, he rolled himself over the carrier's top plate just in time to catch Slippy's Arwing flying past towards their initial rendezvous point. His main gun's radiating with the pulsating aura of a full charge, he found himself lined up with the starboard flank of one of the Wolfen tailing his partner. The otherwise piercing whine from his targeting computer indicating a lock on was the best sound he'd heard in days, it was a perfect shot.

A bright flash emblematic of vastly overloaded shields engulfed the enemy craft as both shots ripped through its starboard wing. Barreling off course from Peppy's flight path, it disappeared from view as Falco passed just behind the remaining Wolfen which itself jolted off of its pursuit in response to the sudden crippling of his partner.

"Nice one, Falco!" Slippy lauded after breathing a sigh of relief.

"Nothin' to it!" Falco triumphantly returned, a fair bit of tension escaping him too at the mere prospect of facing one less adversary. "Hook around the Fox's stern and let's take care of the rest of 'em!" Before Slippy could confirm this, however, his moment of victory collapsed before him as his Arwing was rocked by a volley of laser fire.

"I'll rip you to shreds!" Wolf shrieked, laying into Falco with his own rage induced attack. A moment of blinding light overcame him as his own shields, this time, could not stave off the assault. Struggling with his returning vision, Falco caught but a glimpse outside his canopy of Wolf's ship coming down on him from above.

His breath caught in his throat and his hands pressed firmly against the observation deck's safety glass, Peppy looked on in horror as his friends narrowly escaped endless peril in his absence. Years of camaraderie shouted him down to set aside his shame and come to their aid, yet with a pang of fear shooting through him and ice cold trauma accompanying every heartbeat he could not find it in himself to take the first step towards the hangar bay.

"This can't be happening," he dreaded, his head growing ever more downcast until his forehead met the glass barrier.

"Incoming transmission, source identified as StarWolf vessel," ROB announced, prompting a perk of the ear and renewed, though disconcerted initiative out of Peppy as he turned to face the deck's holocomm interface.

"To the primary relay?" he asked as he approached it, "Is it a cyber intrusion?"

"Negative, transmission contains no malicious software,"

Had he found himself in this situation under any other circumstances, Peppy was certain he'd simply block it entirely without a second thought. However, glancing back out at the streams of luminescent death and the shadows they cast on the floor before him as they danced back and forth beyond the observation port, any hope that remained within him that he could fix the damage he'd caused convinced him it was worth a try.

"Patch it through, ROB," he ordered, squaring his stance as the signal came in.

"Fox? Falco? are you there?" the individual behind the transmission began, the shock that occurred to Peppy from the distinct femininity of its voice paling in comparison to the all too familiar face behind it as it materialized.

"Katt?"


	17. Part 17

Falling Star

Part 17

The shadow cast from his body by the sunlight cascading through the maw ripped into the tree canopy above him and the creak of smoldering plant matter from his targets fiery impact were all that accompanied Fox as he slipped through the maze of fallen trees leading to the _Troades'_ crash site. Now mere yards from its hull, he could finally make out what had managed to endure its own encounter with the incident that had stranded them in this place; the cataclysmic nature, not to mention his own good fortune for surviving which, had only just settled in his mind. Listing in its resting place, all but the bridge and its ancillary facilities seemed in any kind of working order, the rest having been torn to ribbons either loosely attached to it or strewn far and wide around it. Remarkably, and rather frighteningly, even some of the paint sprawling its armor plating remained almost untouched, particularly so of one effigy of a war ape screeching in passionate attack who's blood lusting eyes seemed to stare directly into his. Averting his focus back to the task at hand, he continued on towards the shadowed abyss of its bowels, drawing his blaster from its holster as the beat of his heart quickened considerably.

Finding an opening exposed to the outside low enough to climb into but not rendered inaccessible by the impact, Fox pulled himself up inside the _Troades_. Coming to his feet, he was greeted instantly by the pitch black just beyond what little sunlight could leak in. From deep within, distant creeks and moans of stressed steel and carbon filaments echoed out to him. After taking a glance behind him if only to remind him what the alternative was, he switched his blasters flashlight attachment on and stepped in.

While spattered with dirt and vegetation closer to the outside, the halls leading deeper into the dark heart of the vessel's corpse were far less dilapidated than he'd expected. That was, save for a thin veneer of ash coating nearly every inch of wall and floor he shined a light on. An overwhelming smell of burnt wire and metal wafted about the thin air around him, piercing his sensitive nose, and the occasional yawn of the deteriorating hull meant he was always somewhat perched on the front half of his feet. Though he quickly pulled his scarf over his snout to ease his breathing, he found considerably greater discomfort in the lack of any foot prints and rooms thoroughly excavated of any furniture or equipment that hadn't been tightly bolted into the ships frame. Nevertheless, it wasn't nearly enough to keep his ears from their stiff perk atop his head, nor to keep him from constantly checking behind him lest an unaccounted-for combatant were to exploit the acute lack of visibility and sneak up on him.

Much further inside than he would have preferred to have traversed, Fox finally found a stairwell and, quite courteously, a map adjacent to it assuring that it would take him to the bridge. The skewed angle of its steps in congruence with that of the rest of the ship meant that he was all but forced to cling to the railing in order to keep his footing as he nervously climbed each riser, particularly mindful of each step as the ceaseless creaking and absence of entire treads and even landings in some parts reinforced his uncertainty of the structural rigidity it maintained. Even bolting through the hostile vacuum far above him, narrowly avoiding doom by enemy pilots seemed an infinitely more calm experience as he struggled to maintain his composure.

Once he had reached his destination, the monumental lettering that spelled out "bridge" above the threshold leading into it confirming so, Fox pried at the sliding door with an urgency that could only accompany a hailstorm of ash, paint, and metal shavings that rained down on him as he worked it open. Squeezing himself through the moment it would allow him, he nearly dropped to the floor, never having thought he'd be so gracious to step foot on a somewhat stable floor. This reaction, however, was short lived as he suddenly realized that in his haste to escape the stairwell the fact that sunlight once again blessed his still dark adjusted vision through the observation ports which surrounded the bridge. A fleeting ocular sweep, accelerated by his intensifying desire to be rid of this place, let alone of the lack of any connection to civilization, laid his eyes upon a ray of luminescence cascading down onto a panel of instruments. Like a beacon of much needed hope, he found under it the ship's primary communications relay to which he leapt absent of the slightest second thought. Anxious to begin shouting an SOS to whomever could hear, it quickly became apparent, however, that the relay was without power. More so that he hadn't considered this possibility in his haste than the issue itself, he let out a sigh before realigning his priorities.

"There must be an auxiliary generator around here somewhere," he reassured himself, clinging to the ration of confidence that could be found in the knowledge that he was at the very least one step closer to rescue.

"There is," a grizzly voice responded from the darkness behind Fox, a menacing calm in it's tone, "but you won't have much use for it now."

His eyes shooting open, Fox pivoted himself just in time lock eyes with the towering silhouette which spoke those words before it lunged out at him. With a flick of his wrist, Fox attempted to get a shot in before it could close the gap between them. A deafening ping from the blast rang out, prolonged by its reverberation on the bridge's walls, but to no avail as whatever had engaged him grabbed a hold of his forearm and ensured that the round sailed well clear of his body. In lightning fast succession, his adversary twisted Fox's arm upwards before he could muster any kind of counter-attack, dislocating his elbow with a horrifying crack and forcing him to drop the blaster to the floor. Even while paralyzing trauma and numbness shot through his arm, he barely had time to cry out in response to it before a fist collided with his jaw and propelled him into the relay panel, completely disoriented.

The wind now thoroughly knocked out of him and struggling even to stay upright, Fox could only watch in a craze of double vision and adrenaline as the silhouette approached him. Stepping into the light, his unmistakably Androssian features in perfect compliment to the predatory glare in his eyes became known as he wrapped his right hand around Fox's neck and lifted him off his feet.

"So, you survived," the Androssian spoke, their eyes now level with each other as Fox tried desperately to pry the hand from his airways while the other simply hung down beside him. "Your ilk never die easy, you know? I almost respect that about you." A smirk growing on his expression, he watched with insidious playfulness as Fox gasped for breath and thrashed in his grasp, consciousness having begun to fade from him.

"Don't worry, I don't intend to kill you," he continued, "You caused me a great deal of trouble, but I will be sure to return the favor in a far more meaningful way."

"Go to hell!" Fox choked, the last of his breath now exhausted as he again returned to the solitude of infinite darkness from which he had first arrived.


	18. Part 18

Falling Star

Part 18

Fox awoke to the smell of ash and fire. It was not the smell of burning metal and wire he had endured when he first entered the _Troades_ , it was more nostalgic than that. Fleeting memories of warm summer nights around a roaring bonfire occurred to him, only to be immediately tinged by the realization that his arms were bound to a tree behind him. A natural instinct to try and free himself kicked in, yet the lingering pain of his damaged elbow crippled him beyond the slightest ability to do so. He was still there, on that silent planet, now at the mercy of whoever had also survived the crash.

His eyes creaked open, and through the haze of a splitting headache he saw the ape that had done this to him illuminated in the fading daylight. The cape he wore was torn and scuffed, and his uniform underneath was spattered with dirt and soot, yet he knelt by his creation with a terrifying dignity as the flames consumed the reflection in his eyes. A groan escaping Fox as he tried to recoup himself, the ape's eyes suddenly turned to face him.

"You're awake," he grinned, a menacing calm in his rumbling voice.

"Apologies for your arm. I would have preferred only to subdue you, but you didn't leave me much choice." Whether by choice or the ache of the bruising on his face, Fox remained silent.

"Nothing to say, huh? I suppose that's fair." he began again, standing himself up and turning away to gaze at the stars emerging in the sky.

"I was born on Corneria, you know? I grew up in the slums of the old borough."

"Life there was an unrelenting maelstrom of crime and poverty, but I loved that place. I'd stay up into the early morning hours so I could look out at the city skyline from the roof of our apartment. I wanted so badly to make something of myself, to give something of substance back to my home."

"I think the good doctor and I were destined to meet. No one else saw the potential that he did in me. If he hadn't taken me out of the public school to study under him, I fear I never would have realized it to the extent that I did."

"Why are you telling me this?" Fox scoffed through the rasp in his throat. Turning his head down just so to see Fox out of his peripheral vision, the ape merely smiled.

"Because we're not so different, you and I." he mused, "we both lived peaceful lives, once, until we lost someone we cared deeply for. Until we were betrayed by those we believed we could trust."

"Don't preach to me," Fox sneered, "my father died because of people like Andross. Because of people like you."

"I wouldn't be so quick to defend James if I were you. Then again, you wouldn't know any better, but I do."

"Wha-?" Fox doubled back, his ears perking up as he searched for whatever forlorn connection he could have been referring to.

"You don't remember me, do you?" the ape went on to ask, turning with a smug grin engulfing his expression to approach Fox, who's eyes began to widen. "Shame, I remember you quite vividly."

"You and I first met around the time the good doctor met your mother." he went on, kneeling just out of range of Fox's gritted teeth. "His dream of a Corneria guided by the implore of technocracy under his bio-engineering ostracized him from many in the scientific community, but not her. Small wonder he became so smitten with her."

"Her death was truly a pity, and even as a pup you reminded me so much of her; steadfast and reckless as always, but nonetheless principled and graceful."

"Wait," Fox began, a stream of memory he'd thought he'd repressed suddenly coming back to the surface. A horrifyingly clear picture of the mother he'd never gotten to know alongside the man stood before him, younger and far less battle weary, shot through Fox's psyche as he spoke his name. "...Jake?"

"Very good," Thaag beamed with sinister joy, "I'll let you keep calling me that as a token of my appreciation."

"Alright, so you spared me because you knew my mother." Fox presumed, taking Thaag's sentiment for what it was, though struggling to see his point. "I suppose I should be grateful, but it doesn't change the fact that all of this is yours and Andross' doing."

"I thought you might say that," Thaag sniped, the confidence in his stance unwavering. "No, I kept you alive so that you might understand the depth of the betrayal you've yet to know."

"What are you talking about?" Fox howled, the pain throughout his body lost to his shoring rage as he pulled at his restraints to close as much of the gap between them as possible. "My father would never betray me!"

"But he did," Thaag came back, "That we are here now is proof enough of that."

"I'll bet you thought we ended up on here by mistake, didn't you?" he asked as he came back to his feet and approached the fire, its dying embers casting a shadow of his form over Fox. He was correct in his assumption, but Fox wasn't about to let him have the glory of knowing it. "That'd make sense, you won't find it on any star map."

"This planet was the good doctor's final gift to the people of the Lylat System, and though he now sleeps his legacy will be resurrected in their uplifting."

Utterly bewildered by the ape's declaration, Fox could only sit in disturbed silence as the last few embers left in the fire skirted away into the mire of the encroaching night. Thaag, too, spoke not another word as he bore witness to its demise, and before long Fox could only make out a silhouette of his body. That, however, quickly became the least of his concerns as a pronounced rustling in the bush and trees that surrounded them signaled the approach of a horde of some creature terrifyingly complimented by the echo of their screeching clicks.

"Do you hear that?" Thaag whispered, a prominent adrenaline in his tone, "They are coming. Andross, thy divine providence graces us; we will not fail you."


	19. Part 19

Falling Star

Part 19

His ears pounding with the footsteps of nearing unknowns and his heart racing up his throat with each panicked breath, Fox desperately clawed and tugged at his bindings to no avail. Out of the peripheral of his eyes, jarring back and forth looking for some kind of alternative that would save him, he could just barely make out Thaag's body being encroached, slowly and methodically, by whatever he had summoned to them. Even so, he stood terrifyingly firm, even tranquil as they postured to their soon-to-be prey with piercing hisses. Then, in one quick motion, they pounced on him.

The crashing thud of his body hitting the gravel sent a shock wave through the ground before what seemed like metal studded flesh piled on top of him. In that moment, the somber, existential feeling that had preceded the cataclysm which landed him on that planet seemed but a infinitesimal spec of peaceful acceptance. Even the prospect of Thaag suffocating him beyond life was subject to a debate of preference. Sitting there, awaiting an entirely alien fate, he could only clench his eyes shut and grapple with an endless number of possibilities his imagination held him hostage to try and use to describe what was about to happen.

Suddenly, in the midst of this existential crisis, a sensation of relief washed over him. His eyes creeping back open, he quickly realized that he was not dead, though nor was he yet free of imminent danger. He could move. Before he could make any sense of that, let alone how it would benefit him at this point, though, his vision was immediately beset by a nova of intense luminosity descending like an envoy of the heavens from the sky. A solid fifty yard radius now clear as day to him, Fox could finally see for himself at least one portion of whatever gift of Andross' to the solar system Thaag had been referring to.

Where only moments before the ape had reveled in humble submission now stood a dense perimeter of vertebrates. Though some examples of a clear species could be seen, their horde was a vast spectrum of size and feature in which only the patches metallic plating scaring their bodies, wires coursing through the surface layers of their skin, and presumably beneath, and the nightmarish screech they emitted in response to their exposure related them. The otherworldly isolation that lingered in the silence of that place now comprised a monument of the scale to which the environment had been manipulated. Truly, Fox wished he had the luxury to feel even a modicum of sympathy for them, but the far more pressing issue of his own survival had to take prevalence.

Fortunately for him, the overwhelming sense of dread when mulling over how exactly he was going to accomplish this, even now that he regained his movement and sight, too lasted but a fleeting moment as the air around him again erupted with light. This time, however, it came not in the form of a flare, but rather intense discharges of white hot energy, like concentrated bolts of flame. Dashing into the shade of a nearby brush, his assurance that he was no longer on their radar couldn't help but pale in comparison to the shear awe of the firepower on display. Some kind of mechanized infantry? No, even modern battle tanks were outfitted with traditional artillery shells, impact velocities far faster than his naked eye could perceive. This was smaller, and whoever was doing it had to be near by as evident by its shifting origin of fire.

It was formidable to be sure, each of its shots ripping through the flesh and metal of its demented targets before maiming anything nearby with its impact detonation, but it was skittish nonetheless, clearly avoiding close proximity with the creatures for any period of time beyond absolutely necessary. He wasn't sure whether or not its intentions were malicious towards them alone, and given all that had happened until that point he was reasonably skeptical. However, whether he liked it or not, and he didn't, this new unknown was his best chance at solving the problem he'd been dragged into. Inhaling deeply, he decided to help.

Scanning the ensuing chaos from the cover of the brush's darkness, he searched for something, anything he could use as a weapon. There was certainly no shortage of sharp metal plating, teeth, and claws laying around, but melee combat was out of the question in his condition, not to mention the danger close of his counterpart. His blaster quickly came to mind, until he remembered he had lost it back on the _Troades_. They couldn't have come far from it, but in this pitch darkness there's no way he'd find it in time, if at all. Shock waves of pain and adrenaline coursing through him once more, Fox grit his teeth as he dug his claws into the soil on which he knelt. Defeat and abuse was nothing his skin and bones weren't accustomed to, but the inability to affect the battlefield in any great capacity was not something he was known to tolerate. It seemed, however, that that was simply the reality he was subject to.

Just then, a metallic glint reflecting from another discharge caught his eye. His eyes shooting to the area where Thaag had been overcome, they befell what appeared to be a trigger guard poking out from underneath the disfigured corpse of one of the creatures. It had to be.

Any further consideration lost to him, Fox bolted into the fray, his eyes firmly affixed on his weapon. Holding his wounded arm close, he slid feet first into the body which entombed it before thrusting his good hand underneath to pry it out. Mustering all the strength he could, he managed to free it, covered in some stomach churning mixture of blood and coolant as it was. However, he was unable to keep his balance from the leftover tension, landing himself flat on his back just as one of the beasts, reptilian in appearance minus the grievous mutations, crawled over the body and bellowed a menacing hiss in his face.

He wasn't even sure if it still worked, but that was the least of his problems as he flicked his wrist to fire off as best a shot he could. The ping from its laser had to be the most beautiful sound he had heard in days, and though it failed to deliver a lethal blow, it still blew a sizable chunk clear off its body. Far better than he expected from his left hand. Jumping back to his feet, he began darting back and forth between the cover of the tree he'd been bound to and the brush it bisected, firing into the now flustering horde as their mob juggled focus between him and the yet unknown other. Suddenly, it was as if the two of them were in perfect sync. It was repositioning itself to time ideally with his movements such that the risk of him getting caught in its area of explosive effect were minimized, and before long the creatures came to know that they had been bested in this particular engagement.

The horde now beginning to break and disperse back into the tree line, Fox found himself caught in a trance of amazement, but also fearful confusion trying to work out what was to happen now that they were gone. He was almost certain he was hallucinating when, from a branch some fifteen feet above the forest floor, a strangely familiar looking dropped down into the flood of the beacon's n light. Walking gracefully upright toward him, it bore near identical anatomy to his own, if a bit more slender. Its finer details remained obscured by the still blinding, though surely dying light of the beacon behind it, yet with each step closer he became more and more sure that whoever this was, they were not of the typical Lylat phenotype. Its ocean blue fur, interrupted only by white markings resembling those he'd seen in the chamber beneath the mountain, laid to rest that suspicion.


	20. Part 20

Falling Star

Part 20

"Se-jun?" Salk asked as he approached her, perfectly masking his knowledge of her being there already.

"Captain! Sir!" Pond exclaimed as soon as she laid eyes on him, jumping to her feet and striking the appropriate salutatory pose.

"Do me a favor," Salk began, only just managing to maintain reciprocity to her enthusiasm while slunk in his pose and slightly bereft of commanding tone, "consider yourself at ease until we're back in orbit, okay?"

"Sure," Pond smiled, her shoulders relaxing as she brought her arm back down to her side. "Are your wounds healing well?"

"Well, considering I've always been told military doctors only really make you more comfortable while you die, I suppose I can't complain." Salk replied in cynical jest, to which he and Pond shared a laugh. "Have you seen my chauffeur around? He was supposed to come get me after the hearing."

"Oh, I told him I would take care of chauffeuring you," Pond explained, the answer Salk knew to be so and yet struggled to decide whether or not he was prepared for. "I figured you'd want some more familiar company after you're hearing."

A brief pause wafted between them as Salk found himself lost for a reply. Instead, his gaze meandered about the rift of hazel separating her overwhelmingly green irises from the pitch blank of her pupils. Their engulfing darkness stood as a viscous reminder of the events that had led him to this moment, and the tears he knew they'd eventually shed haunted him until she spoke once again, reeling him back into the present tense.

"I-I guess I should have asked you if that was okay first. I'm sorry." she surmised from his lack of response, the smile fleeing from her face as she turned away slightly and rubbed the back of her neck.

"Actually," Salk began as his eyes widened a bit, more sincere than the melancholy in his expression would let on at the realization that not only was she correct in her assumption, but that this time was now more valuable than ever as well. "I can't think of anything I'd like more."

"I'm glad to hear it," Pond replied, a warm smile gracefully returning to her.

"Just promise me you won't fall asleep before we make it to your flat," she went on to poke, beginning to make way for the front entrance with Salk in tow. "I'd hazard to guess you're ready to pass out after everything that's happened."

"You're not wrong, but I don't think I could even sleep off how hungry I am; haven't eaten anything all day," Salk moaned, grabbing his stomach at the thought of food other than the medic rations he'd been given up until then as they walked out into the dry, torrid air of a fading summer's afternoon. "What about you? Have you eaten yet?"

"Me?" Pond began, stopping just shy of the car and turning to face Salk as if that wasn't a perfectly normal question to ask someone. A hand coming to her raised chin as she pondered, it having just occurred to her that this rendezvous had been all she'd thought about at least since breakfast that morning.

"I guess I haven't," she concluded, her attention returning to Salk as he approached.

"Perfect, I know a good place just a few blocks from my apartment." Salk announced, walking straight past her and lowering himself into the car's passenger seat with a muffled grunt.

The interstate leading out of downtown didn't give a unique or even particularly stunning view of the skyline and the hues of orange and red which comprised the backdrop of the evening sky on which it laid. Still, it felt nostalgic enough in comparison to several months with nothing to look out at except the vast emptiness of space. Both Salk and his rather nervous looking ensign, however, were finding it difficult to enjoy the scenery as the city center faded into the rear view mirror, not a word nor a motion escaping either of them outside of the occasional bump in the pavement.

Behind the wheel, Pond tried to no avail to relax herself. Sitting upright and ramrod stiff, she occupied herself gripping the steering wheel to keep the car as perfectly centered in their lane as possible while lamenting on her own contribution to the awkward tension between them. It having never occurred to her that she would be doing anything other than simply driving Salk home, an abundance of possibilities now flooding her conscience blocked out the numerous things she knew she could have talked about on any other day.

She longed so passionately only for the two of them to interact as if everything was normal, but even she knew that was a distant fantasy and had been from the moment she found him, defeated, on that medic bed. Knowing this, she feared that whatever this evening meant to either of them would end up grossly overshadowed and rendered effectively inert by that lingering monolith, the shadow under which they'd been entirely cast.

He, meanwhile, struggled to keep himself from slouching into the passenger seat as he watched the buildings go past; particularly when they drove past the medical center he had planned on visiting. Maybe it was for the best, he thought to himself; they'd probably only give him false hope and a countdown, but at least in that scenario it wouldn't have been him doing the lying.

"Did you find out how long repairs are gonna take?" he suddenly spoke, if only to get out of his own head for a moment.

"Yeah," Pond replied, masking her relief that the silence had finally been broken. "The shipyard estimates three days before all damaged ships are clear for redeployment."

"And millions of taxpayer credits to do it all," Salk cringed, the words nearly drying up in his mouth as it spoke them.

"I'm sure the defense budget is more than capable of absorbing the cost," Pond reassured him, though to little avail.

"I know," Salk began, "I just can't help but feel like I accidentally cut deeper into a gaping wound."

"What do you mean?" Pond asked, slightly taken aback by the unpleasant imagery he'd chosen.

"Admiral Kong defended me today, he even praised me," Salk pointed out, finding it hard to believe the occurrence even as he remembered it.

"He's never done that before."

"That's... uncharacteristically kind of him," Pond hesitated, no stranger herself to the cruelties her superiors were capable of, especially through Salk's lens. "That's a good thing, though, right?"

"I'd like to think so, but it seemed to have more to do with defying the ministry," Salk explained, the tiresome scowl which had come over him unyielding and his gaze firmly affixed on something beyond the passing infrastructure as he himself tried to work through what exactly he'd witnessed. "I've seen them argue before, but I've never felt such a toxicity in their dialogue."

"You know, when the war ended, I thought at the very least things could go back to the way they were; that life could be simple again if nothing else," he sighed, "but it's not, it's only gotten more complicated, and it looks like I landed myself right in the center of it."

"Well, for what it's worth, I think you did the right thing," Pond mused, turning to give Salk what sympathetic expression she could muster. "And if you ever need anything, you know I'm always there for you."

"I need a drink," Salk replied, his eyes grown heavy, though noticeably touched by her gesture.

"I think I can handle that," Pond smiled back at him.


End file.
